Go to YouTube.com/MotorTrend and search “COPO Camaro” to get more details, and to see and hear this insane burnout on an episode of “HOT ROD Unlimited.”

We legitimately had the chills. Not because it was 32 degrees at Milan Dragway. Certainly not because we’d never seen a raspy race car before. But there was something different about the quivering mass of pure-white Camaro that was rolling into frame for our cover photo. It was special: the ear-piercing realization of a plan that had been formed years before the fifth-gen, ’10-model Camaro ever saw light outside of General Motors’ secretive facilities. Long before the first bailout check. A scheme hatched among the hot rodders within GM well before early 2009, when the PR machine told HOT ROD, with a straight face, that the new Camaro was not a muscle car but a “high-tech, efficient sports car for the Fergie generation.”

Three years later, the dudes surrounding us at the track were the engineering and marketing insiders who never bought into that BS. They were the guys who basically made the fifth-gen Camaro happen and who created this factory-built, limited-edition drag racing car with their own bare hands and strong will. We stood among the reinventors of the COPO Camaro.

The Legacy

COPO. You’ve heard the term. Back in the ’60s, custom orders for unusual option combinations were processed—usually for fleet managers—via what was known as a Central Office Production Order, or COPO. In 1968, it was used by dealer Fred Gibb to create 50 of the 396-powered Novas with TH400 automatic transmissions (regular production cars were all four-speeds) for homologation into NHRA Stock Eliminator classes, but the moniker earned a hallowed overtone in the ’80s when the muscle car craze had magazines gushing over the fast and rare 427-powered cars that Chevy never intended to build for 1969. Fred Gibb was again the instigator, realizing that factory Can Am racers were using an all-aluminum big-block and talking Chevrolet’s Vince Piggins into creating COPO No. 9560 to install a derivative of that engine into 50 factory-built ’69 Camaros for AHRA and NHRA drag racing. Other dealerships would order 19 more, for a total of 69 built. The engine code of ZL1 came when the same all-aluminum 427ci mill was applied to two factory-built Corvettes (the engine appeared as the main cover image on the Dec. ’68 issue of HRM).

2/24Though we met at Michigan’s Milan Dragway for some burnout photos, the COPO team was not ready to unleash e.t. numbers at press time. This is the Proof of Concept (POC) car, the first ’12 COPO built. Its graphics differ a bit from the production models, and the antenna you see on the roof will be omitted from the other cars. The bodies for the COPOs come from the Oshawa, Ontario, Canada plant, painted using the factory procedures.

A more common application of the process was used by many dealerships using COPO No. 9561 to slide the Corvette’s iron, 425hp, L72 427 into ’69 Camaros and Chevelles. All of this ducked the corporate mandate that no production car midsize or smaller could have in excess of 400 ci, thereby leaving the Corvette as the pinnacle performer.

The Now

Today’s COPO Camaro plays a similar game of corporate smoke and mirrors: GM still protects the Corvette’s top-dog status, yet now a Camaro is the most powerful car in the stable. But, technically, the ’12 COPO is not a car—it’s a parts assembly. It’s Chevrolet Performance PN 20129562, the last four digits a nod to the sequential history of the COPO Camaro order numbers. Unlike the COPO cars of the past, the ’12 carries no VIN and cannot be registered for street use. It’s for racing and nothing more. In fact, it’s the very first non-street-licensed race car produced in quantity by General Motors.

3/24On the day we visited, the POC car was loaded with the nastiest of the three optional engines: the 327 LS3 with a 4.0L Whipple blower. GM won’t share real power numbers or even the boost pressure, and since power varies so much with boost, it’s really hard to guess the power. But we will anyway: 900. Though that blower pulley does seem a little big. Time will tell. As you can see, everything that’s not a drag car has been carved away, though the radiator and fans are stock SS items. That intercooler tank will differ a bit in production cars.

There will be 69 ’12 COPO Camaros, just as there were in 1969. When the program became reality following the debut of the concept at the 2011 SEMA Show, about 3,000 dealers were asked to create lists of potential buyers, netting around 2,000 “hand-raisers,” or folks who claimed they’d buy a COPO if they could. In other words, people who’d happily pay around a hundred grand for the ultimate Camaro collectible. With GM retaining the first car and holding back a few for marketing reasons (we take that to mean they were cherry-picked for top race teams, to ensure some successes), there were 2,000 people vying for about 65 cars. Names were loaded into the computerized hopper and spit out into a random list, and Chevrolet Performance’s Dr. Jamie Meyer called people in sequential order until he had sold every car. That process was completed around February 2012, several months before production would begin in May. One of the most memorable customers is a guy who was going to buy a new ’69 COPO just before he was shipped to Vietnam, ending that dream. Forty-four years later, he finally closed the deal.

While some of the COPOs were sold to guys who will hermetically seal them into heated garages and hope to double their money in 25 years, Chevrolet assures us plenty are going into competition.

The Why

The engineers who wanted to produce the new COPO Camaro had to answer to multiple layers of GM management. These cars don’t add up to big-profit sales, so why should GM produce a short run of race cars? First, because it would round out the plan wherein there’s a Camaro for anyone, from the base and upscale V6 models, to the 1SS and 2SS V8 cars, to the latest 1LE handling setup, to the ZL1, which is the ultimate street/strip/road-course package. Naturally, a quarter-mile stomper was needed.

4/24The production car’s air conditioning, radio, power steering, and power brakes are all gone from the COPO. This Strange lightweight brake master uses a support (arrow) against firewall flex.

With Ford’s Cobra Jet Mustangs and Dodge’s Drag Pak Challengers running the NHRA Stock Eliminator ranks since 2008 and 2010, respectively, the Camaro was conspicuously absent. GM had to answer the competition. The good news about Stock and Super Stock is that the engines must be based on real GM production designs, not the fantasy engines seen in most other forms of racing. Also, some of these cars will certainly trickle into the American Drag Racing League’s SuperCar Showdown series, which may offer even more appeal to hot rodders than the NHRA Stock classes that get little to no air time.

There’s also the plain PR function of the specialized car, which has been seen in countless media outlets. Had Chevy simply sponsored some new Pro Stock car, you wouldn’t have seen it on the cover of HOT ROD, for example.

There’s also the very real benefit of parts sales. Nearly every specialized part on the COPO that was developed by GM will be available through the Chevrolet Peformance parts catalog, including crate engines. We expect the hoods to be a huge seller. A list of the part numbers that have been assigned as of April 2012 is included on page 78, though more are to come. Around the time this issue of HRM goes on sale, GM hopes to have published a complete COPO buildup book describing how anyone can replicate the cars for competition.

The Hardware

The car seen in this story is, in GM engineering lingo, the Proof of Concept. In layman’s terms, the prototype. It was used for parts development and performance testing and features a few items that will be either improved or omitted by the time production begins. But the basics are all there, and we’ve spelled out the details in the captions and spec lists.

There are three different engines available: a naturally aspirated, 427ci LS7 and two versions of supercharged 327s, one with a 2.9L Whipple blower and the real screamer with the 4.0L. The so-called 327s are more like 5.3L LS3s. The published horsepower numbers are absurd: 425 hp for the 427, 500 for the smaller blower on the 327, and 550 for the big-blower version. Pshaw. That’s as bogus as the advertised shipping weights (3,175 to 3,250 pounds), all to play the game of NHRA Stock and Super Stock classifications. We couldn’t even get the engineers to slip us the real data, and it’s not like they don’t have it. (Days later, we got the same non-answers from Ford on the pending ’13 Mustang Cobra Jet combo.)

5/24Here in the engine center at Wixom, you can see the guts: a Callies crank and H-beam rods, Mahle pistons, a hydraulic roller cam, and stock valvetrain.

We toured the 80,000-square-foot engine facility and Performance Build Center in Wixom, Michigan, where the COPO engines were developed and where they will be built. The place is jam-packed with real hot rodders with the ultimate toolbox, including mind-blowing CNC machines and four engine and drivetrain dynos that collect a baffling amount of data. On those dynos, each of the COPO engines was validated by running simulated drag-race cycles, matching the rpm and loads of a real drag pass from burnout, to staging, to the pass, to running back up the return road. Each engine package had to run this cycle 200 times in a row without failure to prove its beef. The blown engines use the Chevrolet Performance LSX block, and the 427 uses a production LS7 block, and they are all stuffed with Callies cranks and rods, Clevite H-series bearings, and Mahle pistons and rings.

6/24All the COPO engines drink from a full Aeromotive fuel system that includes an Eliminator in-tank pump and A1000 regulator on the passenger-side inner fender. The battery will be a Delco unit in the balance of the cars. Note the voltage gauge, with a pushbutton light at the upper left.

Part of the goal with the engines was to create simple interchangeability so that a racer could swap superchargers, or even engines, to race in multiple classes. As a result, there’s a lot of commonality between the engines. The 327s use the same short-block—right down to the camshaft—regardless of the supercharger used, so only the blower, throttle-body, injectors, and ECM need to be changed to race two classes. All three engines use the same CNC-ported LS7 cylinder heads, and, interestingly, they have OE hydraulic roller lifters and rocker arms. The electronics are also based on stock parts, with a Delco MEFI 5A controller and stock LS7 coil packs.

The cars themselves don’t change based on the engine used: they all have Strange 9s with 4.29:1 gears, ATI Powerglides with Treemaster MRT 9-inch converters, and Aeromotive Eliminator fuel systems. Program Director Robin Wright says, “We basically build for production, trying to commonize [parts] without compromising. We go with the most robust part needed for the biggest engine power, then use that same part with all the engine packages.” The engineers also know the cars that get raced won’t remain stock for more than a few days and that every racer has different ideas of what works, so there aren’t many reasons to optimize every combination to the Nth degree. Essentially, they’re assembled for shipping purposes.

7/24Inside, there are the stock door panels and dash and a chrome-moly rollcage certified to run 8.50s. The production seats will be Procars, and the rear seat is omitted and filled with original-looking materials. The gauges are Bow Ties by Auto Meter (and will have gold logos in the production run), the shifter is a Hurst Quarter Stick, and the radio will be replaced by a Chevrolet Peformance switch panel, which should become a hot aftermarket item.

Of particular interest is the rear-axle package, which eliminates the production-line, independent rear suspension and replaces it with a Strange 9-inch solid axle with a four-link and Strange coilovers. The link arms and weld-in brackets will be available through Chevrolet Peformance, simplifying the process for any fifth-gen Camaro drag racer who wants a cheaper, easier, and more reliable solution to IRS. All the cars are delivered on 30x9.00-15 slicks for use in Stock Eliminator, so Super Stock racers will be on their own to tub the cars for huge meats. Much of the chassis development in the COPO was done with Mike Pustelny of MPR Race Cars (MPRracecars.com).

The Options

A base COPO runs from $89,000 for the 427 to $97,000 for the 4.0L-blown 327. GM expresses build numbers in percentages of the total run: 62 percent bought the 427, 31 percent got the 4.0L-blown 327, and just 7 percent opted for the little blower on the 327. However, 9 percent of folks paid the extra ticket for the Collectors Package, which includes two extra complete engines and controllers that allow you to swap any of the three available engine combos into the car at any time you wish. All the engines are stamped with the serial number of the car.

8/24The wheels are made by Bogart, and one of the spokes will carry the COPO logo. All the lightweight brakes are from Strange. The wheels are 15x10 and 15x3-1/2 with Hoosier 30x9.00-15 radial slicks and 28x4.50-15 front skinnies.

A quarter of the buyers spent another $5,800 for the Build Your Own Engine program, where the car owner can come to the Performance Build Center in Wixom and help assemble the exact engine that will be installed in their car. (That program is also available to buyers of ZR1, Z06, and Grand Sport Corvettes, as well as select Chevrolet Performance crate engines.)

Director of Performance Vehicles and Motorsports Sandor Piszar tells us the details aren’t solid yet, but the plan is to offer every car with, “a jacket and hat with the car’s serial number, a build book, perhaps a die-cast-model serial-number-matched to the car, and personal delivery at the Performance Build Center.”

The Wrapup

As you read this, the COPO Camaros will be in the midst of being delivered. So you can’t have one. Will there be another chance with a ’13 model? Piszar says, “We will gauge the opportunity. There’s obviously a strong interest, so maybe.”

Meanwhile, you can build your own car according to the Chevrolet Peformance instructions and with its parts. If you do, your car will also be legal for NHRA drag racing. The classes were not exactly nailed down when we wrote this story, but it’s expected that the COPOs will be in A/Stock Automatic to AAA/Stock Automatic, and most of the 4.0L-blown 327s will end up in Super Stock/AA or perhaps Super Stock/AAA with some weight-cutting. These classes will put the Camaro head-to-head with the new Challengers and Cobra Jet Mustangs, the latter of which have been in the game since 2008. Also, the ’13 Cobra Jets running the new 5.0L Coyote V8 will be delivered about the same time as the COPOs, so the rivals should be clashing by the end of the year.

9/24Each COPO car will carry a sequence number on the location that’s used for the VIN tag on a street car, and the number will also be stamped on the matching engine(s). The POC car is the first one, and the tag is etched 2012 COPO POC S/N 001. This car will end up preserved at the GM Heritage Center.

Oh, and the big question: How fast are they? We hate that Chevrolet refused to tell us, and we could not make a full pass, even though we were right there at a track doing burnouts with the POC car. This whole deal is so competitive that there was no chance we were going to get legit power, weight, or e.t. numbers before the COPOs were in the hands of real racers. But we will say that the Stock Eliminator combos need to be in the very bottom 9s. The 7,500-rpm rev limits and the factory gearing combo means these guys have planned on 150-plus mph in the quarter. When we asked a room full of engineers if we’d see an 8-second pass at the first race, we were met with 10 seconds of silence and shifty eyes before someone said, “I guess we’ll find out.”

But what they really need to find out is if the Camaro can knock down the Cobra Jet’s late-model Stock and Super Stock dominance of the past couple years, not to mention the track time that’s already refined those combos. The day we were visiting the COPO team, Don Fezell’s Cobra Jet ran 8.95 at 153 mph, the first 8-second pass in NHRA Stock Eliminator history, and that was with an ’08 car that used a TVS 2300 blower. This is gonna be good.

COPO 327 Engine Specs

Chevrolet Performance LSX cast-iron block with steel main caps

10/24It’s a Strange 9-inch—no F-word here. The axle carries 4.29s, a steel spool, and 35-spline axles. Strange also makes the coilover shocks all around, and the four-link assembly, Panhard, and weld-in brackets will be available from Chevrolet Peformance. Forward and above the axle you can see the antiroll bar. The upper shock mounting will be a little different from this.

12/24If you can eyeball your way through the tangle of equipment and data-collection devices within the GM Wixom dyno cell, you can see the 327 with the smaller, 2.9L blower. We watched as it cycled through simulated dragstrip passes, which it had to do 200 times in a row during validation. This pic reminds us that the COPO engines use cable throttle activation rather than fly-by-wire, which will be a blessing when they are available as crate engines and you’re installing one in your older car.

13/24HOT ROD’s Oct. ’08 cover story was about testing eight GM crate engines, all in the same car at the same track in two days. The same ’69 Chevelle that was used for that test became a development mule for the COPO engines. It’s seen here with the naturally aspirated 427 LS7, which uses a Holley High-Ram intake. Other details seen here—such as the coilpacks, fuel rails, and throttle-body—differ from what the COPO cars will be delivered with. While based on the LS7, the 427 runs wet-sump oiling.

Deep-sump, cast-aluminum oil pan (6-quart capacity)

ATI Performance Products SFI-approved damper

Meziere billet electric water pump

Chevrolet Performance/Holley “Hi Ram” intake manifold

Whipple billet throttle body – 102mm blade

Parts List as of April 2012

Description

Part Number

Camaro body in white

19243374

COPO raised cowl hood

22950678

COPO rear suspension installation kit

22950680

COPO 427 engine

17802825

COPO 327/2.9L-supercharged engine

17802826

COPO 327/4.0L-supercharged engine

17802827

COPO engine harness

19299289

COPO switch-panel kit

22950650

COPO battery tray

22950651

COPO powertrain-mount kit

22950652

COPO driveshaft safety loop

22950662

COPO driveshaft

22950663

Inside the ZL1

The ’12 Camaro ZL1. GM wants you to race it. The company is practically begging you to destroy a road course or dragstrip. Why else would it add a launch-control feature to the Performance Traction Management program? It’s certainly not because the company expects to sell you a new rearend after the first hard launch. The entire drivetrain is covered by a five-year/100,000 mile warranty, as long as you don’t modify it. And you don’t need to modify it—at least not today. This thing is a 580hp rocket right out of the box. That’s the kind of power you don’t get used to or bored with hours after you sign on the dotted line. You might not wait until the warranty period is up before you dig into the nuts and bolts of this thing in search of more power, but you’ll at least have fun with this car longer than you would with any other production hot rod before you do. Want to hop it up now? Redline Motorsports has already run 10.30s with a few bolt-ons.

17/24The COPO should destroy the ZL1 at the dragstrip. By now, drag racers should have proved it at an NHRA national event. All 69 of the $89,000 to $97,000 COPO Camaros for the ’12 model year have long since been sold, but you can snag a $55,000 street-legal ZL1 and have just as much fun without worrying about putting your irreplaceable golden egg in a wall somewhere.

The ZL1 is hands-down, no doubt about it, the baddest production muscle car ever built (at least until the 650hp ’13 Mustang GT500 is released, and then we’ll see). It’s not just an SS with a blower, either. The blown LSA would destroy a stock SS in short order if you drove it hard enough. GM invested an unheard of amount of resources into tweaking every inch of the Camaro so it would not just survive the racetrack and the additional horsepower but thrive there as well. Here’s a look at how it fortified an already great car for abuse. Wussy enviro-Nazis should just check out here because you aren’t going to enjoy this read.

Heavy Breather

The same 6.2L LSA small-block that powers the Cadillac CTS-V is found under the hood extractor of the ZL1, although it’s substantially more powerful in this application. It produces more than 400 lb-ft of torque by 1,500 rpm and peaks with 556 lb-ft at 4,200 rpm. A common theme with this car is better performance through refinement. The extra ponies were gained through computer-tuning and improving the induction system, specifically the air inlet and blower housing for more flow. The supercharger intercooler core was also redesigned for higher efficiency.

18/24The engine bay is cramped, and we’d hate to have to change a spark plug. But since that won’t need to happen for a few years and the engine is warrantied for even the most lead-foot hot rodders, who cares? The four-lobe Eaton blower is quiet and efficient, and the bottom end of the LSA features forged rods and hypereutectic pistons—a combo that says, “I’m strong, but don’t get crazy with the boost, OK?”

Stick or Auto? How Fast You Wanna Go?

The Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual trans is built 30 percent stronger than the one found in the SS. The output shaft is beefier, an additional support bearing was added to the main shaft and a dual-mass flywheel, and a twin-disc clutch is aboard to transfer the added power. GM included a short-throw shifter and revised the synchronizer design to improve the feel, too. Although the stick is our first choice, GM says the car is actually quicker when the Hydra-Matic 6L90 six-speed auto is used with the tap shifter.

The auto has a true manual mode with zero automatic upshifts, but it also has another mode with staged upshifts. This mode anticipates the moment you’ll shift up and pre-fills the next drum with trans fluid so when you do make the shift, it happens in half the time it normally would. We tested it, and indeed this is the fastest shifting slushbox we’ve ever used.

Corner King

The ZL1 is the first GM performance car to benefit from the third iteration of Magnetic Ride Control (MRC), a technology that alters damper valving without discs or valves. There are no moving parts inside the dampers; instead, a special magnetic fluid reacts to positive or negative current, which alters the fluid’s viscosity by realigning the magnetic particles, thereby changing rebound and compression rates. The system can react to changing road conditions about 1,000 times per second. Complex computer algorithms allow MRC to add and remove roll stiffness when the ZL1 enters and exits a corner to aid turn-in without making the car push and lose traction. We wonder how long it will be before tuners hack the Camaro’s computer through the CAN-BUS connection to view the dampers’ position, velocity, and other parameters the engineers used to tune the system. GM used damper-position data to verify the aero mods it made to the ZL1. The data showed that the Camaro basically lowered itself the faster it went, thereby confirming downforce. This info is valuable if you know what you’re looking at and how to apply it for more performance.

19/24The engineering team tuned the MRC system on the road course, durability-tested the ZL1 for 24 hours straight at GM’s Milford Proving Ground, and ultimately turned a ridiculously fast lap of 7:41:27 at the 12.1-mile Nürburgring course in Germany.

Computerized Grip

To say the ZL1 is wired for performance is a gross understatement. We are used to seeing race cars with a maze of sensors and data-acquisition systems to help crew chiefs find ways to go faster. The ZL1 contains even more sensors and actively uses them to affect the way the car works while offering five user-selectable driving modes for various driving environments. Seventy-five percent of the analog and digital sensors used in the ZL1 to improve acceleration, traction, braking, and handling would be illegal in most professional racing series right now, so it’s impressive to see them on a factory-built muscle car.

20/24Ahead of the shifter are the controls for the Active Handling and Performance Traction Management systems. The button on the right cycles the AH system on and off. The buttons on the left toggle the five traction modes.

Two separate systems are at work, depending on which mode the driver selects. The Active Handling system (AH), aka electronic stability control, is essentially braking intervention and is only enabled in Modes 1–3. For example, AH will brake the inside front wheel to help mitigate understeer. The Performance Traction Management (PTM) system maximizes forward momentum through torque management. It relies on info it receives from the MRC system and a three-directional combination sensor, which provides acceleration and yaw info used to minimize tire slippage.

Both systems are complex and very effective. At any time, the ZL1 knows what gear you’re in, how much power the engine is making, what position the dampers are in, what the steering angle is, and whether or not the AH system is active and uses that data to alter the amount of control it applies to the car, depending on what driving mode you’ve selected.

While the first three modes offer the most control, modes 4 and 5 are our faves. Mode 4 will let you get into trouble with the gas pedal because it offers the least amount of computer intervention when cornering fast, which makes the car feel loose and ready to drift. Mode 5 is a drag racer’s dream. It automatically makes the car launch straight, with minimal wheelspin every single time, using algorithms tuned specifically for dragstrip surfaces. You simply stage the car, push in the clutch, floor the throttle, and the PTM computer alters the launch rpm based on the power output of the engine in the given weather conditions so the tires don’t go up in a blaze of glory. Then you simply dump the clutch and prepare to shift—and hang on! It’s also set up to allow full-on, foot-to-the-floor power shifting.

21/24The hood extractor helps pull heat from the engine compartment and reduces lift at high speeds. The exposed carbon-fiber hood insert is one of just six options on the ZL1. The 20-inch, bright-aluminum wheels, a power sunroof, a stripe package, a suede interior package, and the six-speed auto trans are the only other options.

Does it work? Hell yes. The computer monitors wheel slip 50 times per second and modulates the power output of the engine by reducing ignition timing when traction is lost. It will pull the timing from 20 degrees advanced to -20 degrees retarded in milliseconds to slow the engine speed down without melting parts. We tested the PTM system in 33-degree temps on a near-frozen dragstrip and were able to holeshot the ZL1 without putting it in the wall. When we turned off Mode 5 in the same conditions, the car went sideways immediately.

Mode 1: Traction control for wet conditions, with Active Handling on and Magnetic Ride Control set on Tour.

The 580 hp offers great speed potential if the car stays on the ground. An SS won’t stay on the ground at 160-plus mph, but a ZL1 will reportedly hit 184 mph with the manual tranny. Here’s how: Computational fluid dynamics plus 100 hours of testing in two different wind tunnels at GM’s aero lab resulted in significant gains in vehicle speed and cornering prowess. This is the first Camaro to generate downforce at high speeds. Whereas the SS is hampered by a body design that creates 200 pounds of lift, the ZL1 creates 65 pounds of downforce thanks to a front splitter, a unique rocker-panel design, a hood extractor, front wheel extensions, and a rear spoiler. Testing at 66 mph inside the tunnel revealed how aerodynamically “dirty” the bottom of the car was, so bellypans were designed to reduce drag and improve cooling of the driveline components by funneling the air smoothly over the transmission, driveshaft, and rear differential.

Four Other Great ZL1 Upgrades

1) Cooling

A package that includes a heat exchanger for the rear differential, engine and transmission fluid coolers, and brake-cooling ducts adds up to a muscle car you can treat like a track car on long road courses and tight autocross events without worrying about burning up drivetrain or braking components.

2) Fuel System

A second pickup was added to the fuel tank to ensure every last drop of gas is available, even when cornering.

3) Brakes

Six-piston Brembos with two-piece rotors and integrated high-strength wheel bearings don’t simply make the car stop shorter one time. These parts were selected to enable you to repeatedly drive deep into a corner and brake hard lap after lap without the brakes fading and the pedal hitting the carpet.

4) Chassis

Stronger rear-differential halfshafts and stiffer differential mounting bushings were added to supplement the extra torque of the supercharged engine.